Blood and Thunder
by Acacia Eastbramble
Summary: What if Eren isn't the only one with special abilities? What if there are abilities other than transformation? A member of the Trost Garrison discovers that they have abilities above and beyond what is expected of the average soldier.


**What if Eren and some of the others aren't the only ones who can transform? What if there are people with other talents?**

**Let me know what you think.**

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The sound of collapsing buildings mingled with the shouts of passing soldiers as they tore by on their maneuver gear. With each one that passed her, she felt more and more hopeless. A couple of them asked her why she wasn't moving faster but most of them didn't even notice. She was running low on fuel and was trying to conserve it until she could get to the headquarters or until one of the support teams found her. She spent as little gas as she could, many times skirting just around the feasting titans.

She felt a lurch and then was suddenly freefalling. She barely processed what was happening before she tumbled to the pavement, her left ankle cracking painfully on impact. She howled in agony, then realized her mistake. Titans could sense people without a problem, but screaming certainly wasn't going to help her. She drew herself to her feet and looked around. Luckily there wasn't a titan in sight. She moved up against one of the buildings, into a small alcove to check on her gear. She still had some gas left, but one of her grappling hooks had lost a prong. It must have broken off in the wall and caused her to fall. Her ankle was throbbing and a splitting pain shot through it with each step.

Her best bet was to hide until she could heard a support team. She thought about finding her way onto one of the rooftops, but decided that'd just make it easier for the titans to spot her. So she peaked out from the alcove and looked for any sign of titans. Not seeing any, she hustled as fast as her ankle would allow to the nearest door. She wrenched it open and went in, slamming it behind her. She heaved a sigh of relief as she settled to the floor against a staircase.

"Hello?" a voice called and she found herself reaching for her sword.

"Hello?" she called back.

Two men stepped out from around the corner and stared at her. They wore the roses of the Garrison on their jacket but she had never seen them before. Neither of them had maneuver gear. They looked at hers and then she looked at hers and then they made eye contact.

"Why're you here if you have maneuver gear?" one of the men asked, clearly not the one who had called out in the first place.

"I'm nearly out of fuel and one of my hooks is broken," she replied, then she looked down at her foot. "And my ankle is messed up from when I crashed."

"We ran out of fuel too," the other man said as he looked over at his friend, "Only our maneuver gear got busted up in the crash. Completely unsalvageable."

She nodded to them and then bent her knee, pulling her left ankle closer. The pain was nearly unbearable. She undid the buckle at the top of her boot, wincing at the tiny shock of pain that laced all the way up to her hip.

"If you let me use your gear, I can bring back help," the first man said, eyeing her gear.

She paused, thinking. She didn't know this man, nor did he seem like a particularly good man. But he was Garrison and surely he would honor his vows. He might not come back with help, but he would probably send it. She reached down and unlatched all of her maneuver gear, handing it over to him piece by piece. He scrambled putting it on and headed immediately toward the door.

"Don't forget to bring help," the other man said and the first man turned back to him and nodded curtly before leaving, slamming the door behind him.

"Your friend isn't going to bring help. He might not even remember to send it," the woman said as she continued to unbuckle her boot. A small groan escaped her mouth when she jostled her leg too much.

The man bent down next to her and began unbuckling her boot for her. "He isn't my friend. And I'm choosing to believe he'll bring help because how the hell else are we supposed to survive out here?"

He smiled at her and she stuck her hand out to him. "Elsie Mauer."

"Nice to meet you," he said as he shook her hand. "Luka Hoch. You know we don't have any way to bring down the swelling in your ankle. And if we take your boot off, it will swell."

"We can elevate it. For now, we need to see how bad it is," Elsie said with a sharp intake of breath as Luka undid the last buckle just above her heel.

"Your call," he said as he started to slide the boot off of her foot.

A sharp pain lanced all the way up her leg to her spine and she winced, groaning a little. Luka rested her calf on top of his leg. Bruises covered the bottom half of her calf, the skin was shiny where the swelling had stretched it taut. The flesh around her ankle was so black and swollen it looked like it might burst at any second. The bruises extended all the way to her toes and her foot was bent at such an angle that suggested it may be dislocated in addition to sprained or broken. The sharp pains wore off into a horrible deep throb after a moment.

"How the hell did you walk on that?" Luka asked.

"Adrenaline," Elsie breathed out.

"Can you move your toes?"

She looked at her foot and wiggled her toes. Her eyes widened and she lolled her head back at the pain. "Yes."

"That was barely any movement. Come on. We've got to get you some place where you can have your foot up," Luka said as he set her leg gently on the floor, eliciting another faint moan.

"I'd rather stay here if it's all the same. It's near the door in case we have to move," Elsie answered as she looked up at him.

"Alright, I'll see what I can find," Luka said as he stood. "But you better hope we don't have to move, 'cause I don't know how well you would fair with that ankle."

Elsie nodded then rested her head back against the wall, concentrating on everything but the pain. There were titans inside the wall. One of those titans was Eren Jaeger who had apparently failed his mission. Her squad had moved on without her. She and Luka had no maneuver gear and Luka's comrade had only left them a single blade. And her ankle was dislocated, likely broken. She wouldn't be able to run if a titan found them. They were stranded until either someone stumbled upon them or a titan finally sensed them. She sighed and smacked her head lightly against the wall.

"Here we go," Luka said as he rounded the corner with a couple of pillows under one arm and something wrapped in a towel under the other.

He set the pillows down and then the other object and set about gingerly lifting her leg and placing the wrapped object under it. Elsie's hiss of pain dissolved into a sigh of relief when she discovered that the object was cold against the burning flesh of her ankle.

"They had an ice box in their kitchen. We got lucky," he said as he handed her a pillow which she put behind her head.

He sat down next to her and leaned against the wall. They sat in silence for a few minutes, just appreciating the fact that they were alive. Elsie was absolutely exhausted. The weight of the day began to pull at her eyelids and she found herself drifting off toward sleep.

They heard the crack of a gunshot and they both bolted to attention. Elsie flinched again at the sudden movement.

"What was that?" Elsie asked, looking over at Luka who was already on his feet and moving toward the window.

"It sounded like a flare, but I can't see anything from here. I'm going to see if I can see anything from the top floor. Stay here," he said as he ran up the stairs.

Elsie sighed and bit back her tongue, not bothering to tell the fool that she sure as hell didn't have any place else to go.

A couple of moments later she heard a hoot of laughter from upstairs and then rapid footsteps down the stairs. It sounded like he was taking them two at a time.

"It was a flare! The mission succeeded," Luka said as he swung around the bannister and smiled at her.

"That means that Jaeger succeeded and the wall is closed," Elsie said, not bothered by the pain that shot through her ankle.

"We may survive this yet," Luka replied with a nod. "Now it'll only be a matter of time before Trost is crawling with soldiers finishing off the rest of the titans. We just have to wait for them."

* * *

It was getting dark outside and still there was no sign of rescue. Elsie and Luka sat against the stairs, ears straining to hear the sound of maneuver gear over the cannon fire. Luka had gotten up a couple of times to go check for any more signal flares but so far the sky was empty save for swathes of blood red light and the crash of cannons like thunder.

"I don't think they're going to find us tonight," he said as he plopped down next to Elsie.

Elsie nodded and looked over at him. "You're right. I don't think they'd run night ops with this many titans around. It's too dangerous."

"It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't get around to cleaning out the interior of Trost for a couple of days. Garrison isn't really known for its expertise with titans," Luka said with a chuckle.

"I'd never seen one until today," Elsie said quietly. "I didn't even kill one today either."

Luka shrugged. "I guess you're just lucky then."

"Lucky?" she asked and then chuckled, closing her eyes. "I guess you're right."

"You should sleep."

"Hm?" Elsie said as she looked at him inquisitively.

"Sleep. I'll stay up for a bit in case anything happens and wake you if I start to fall asleep," Luka said.

"I guess," she replied, trying to sound like she wasn't exhausted.

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**Please leave a review. Let me know what you think. Feedback is always appreciated.**


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